


Movie Night

by GreyscaleCourtier



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, Pale Romance | Moirallegiance, Scary Movies, i've never even seen The Ring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-21
Updated: 2016-01-21
Packaged: 2018-05-15 08:53:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5779480
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreyscaleCourtier/pseuds/GreyscaleCourtier
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>IN WHICH Eridan and Karkat watch a scary movie and act like big dumb babies about it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Movie Night

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HonestBacon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HonestBacon/gifts).



As a rule, you're not a big fan of Karkat Movie Night.

You've both agreed to have movie night twice a week. One night it's your pick, and the next night it's Karkat's. You don't particularly like each other's movies, but you enjoy each other's company (plus, you have the best snacks).

Still, as you eye the movie case in his hand, you want to put your foot down. _"The Ring,"_ you read flatly.

"Dave recommended it." He elbows his way into your hive and makes for the entertainment block. "He says it's a human classic romance."

"An’ you’re sure he wasn't bullshittin' you?"

Even with his back to you, you can practically hear him roll his eyes. "Eridan, it's about a _ring._ Rings are a pretty huge deal in human romance, remember?"

You trail after him, fiddling dubiously with the violet ones on your fingers. They don't match the dark eclipse-esque one on the DVD case, but... well, you really don't know as much about humans as Karkat does. You decide to suspend your doubts and humor him, and you head into the meal block to make grubcorn while he starts the movie.

-

"Oh my god."

"What the _fuck_ is this?"

"Is she... _Kar is she comin' out of the goddamn TV."_

"Why the shit isn't he running?! Is he just -- is he going to _stand_ there while she -- _oh god."_

"Turn it _off,_ turn it the _fuck_ off Kar."

"Yffcghk dff nn."

"Get out from under the fuckin' snuggleplane and--oh _fuck."_

-

"I can't believe you wouldn't get up to turn it off."

"Yeah, well I can't fuckin' believe you cowered under a goddamn blanket."

"Fuck that, I'm not going _near_ the TV. Feel my bloodpusher. Feel it."

You humor him and lay a hand on his chest. His pulse is admittedly rapid - but you could attribute that to his chronically high blood pressure, so you decide not to feel sorry for him. "Right, well, get off a me and go yell at your shit human friend about this fiasco while I go do the dishes."

"Dave, _god,_ I'm going to murder him. I'm going to murder him so hard it'll make Samara look like the pink moon goddess of pity. Fuck." He pulls out his crab communicator while you gather up the nutrition plateaus.

From what you can hear, Dave doesn't answer, and Karkat leaves a colorfully-worded voicemail about just _where_ he could shove this Ring of his. When he hangs up, you can't help but blurt: "So you're stayin' over, right?"

He looks up at you in bewilderment. "Staying... what, here?"

You shrug, trying to look nonchalant, but oh god what if he leaves you alone here and she comes _crawling out of your TV to murder you_. "It's just, y'know, it's getting late, the sun's about to come up, an' you can, y’know, if you want."

He glances between you and the door, and you can see the same thoughts flash through his mind. "Yeah," he says like it was his idea. "Yeah, I can stay over."

You try and fail to hide the relief on your face.

Neither of you goes and turns off the TV, though.

-

The two of you _do_ end up sharing a recuperacoon.

There's really no reason for it other than you're _fucking terrified_ and every little shadow sends your bloodpusher to fluttering like a hummingbird. So you claim your guest 'coon hasn't been filtered in too long (which, honestly, it probably hasn't) and Karkat agrees with only a halfhearted tantrum, so you're curled around your hotblooded moirail watching the shadows of the dawn creep over your respiteblock walls. Trying not to jump at every gentle thump of the tide against your ship's walls. Trying not to think about how being immersed in sopor slime like this, looking up at the ceiling, is a bit like being trapped at the bottom of a human vertical hydration cistern.

All in all, you think you're doing all right until one wave makes an especially loud *slap* on the shipwreck's hull and you jump halfway out of your skin, earfins flaring out far enough to smack Karkat on the cheek.

"What the blistering--" he yelps, slips in the slime, and slides under the surface with a panicked gurgle. You haul him back upright and shush him. You wish it were the conciliatory kind, instead of the _oh-god-Kar-shut-the-fuck-up-or-we-might-die_ kind.

The slap vibrates in the hull around you again, and no, okay, that was not a wave. You know how the tides work around here, damn it, you've let them lull you to sleep every morning since your lusus brought you here, and--

"Kar," you hiss. "Kar my lusus ain't here."

"What the fuck do you mean your lusus—"

"I mean he's fuckin' gone, Kar, Fef had to borrow him for somethin' yesterday. Kar if somethin' gets in—"

"Shut your raging squawk blister, Eridan, it's just... it's the water, right?" But now there's panic in his voice too, and your gills flare out to echo it, because if your moirail is scared then _you_ should damn well be scared too, shouldn't you?

Out in your recreation block, the white noise of the TV neither of you were brave enough to turn off cuts out with a crackle.

_"Oh god,"_ Karkat hisses half-hysterically into your shoulder. _"Oh god oh god oh god it came out of the TV, I told you to turn it off, I told you--"_

Your underwater eyelids slam down on instinct as your pupils blow wide, scanning the dimness. "Kar," you whisper back, struggling to filter the panic out of your own words. "Kar, it... maybe there was a power surge, there might be... I dunno, a storm blowing up out there." That sounds reasonable enough to you, and as Karkat's death grip on your arm lessens, you think he bought it too. "Yeah," you go on, a little more confidently, "yeah, it happens a lot out here, the power's a tad spotty up on the surface like this, I'm sure if we wait a bit it'll--"

The unmistakable sound of a dripping wet footstep interrupts you.

Karkat's claws dig into your arm again. _"Oh god oh god oh god oh god."_

"Kar it'll hear you, shut the hell up!"

"I've failed you. Oh god. Eridan I've failed as a moirail. We are going to die at the hands of some demon human child and it's going to be one hundred percent my pure unadulterated fucking fault, I'm so sorry."

"No, shhh, stop it--"

The footsteps patter, slow and measured, down the hall. Right to your door. Dripping as they go.

"Kar." You squirm out of his grip enough to turn and face him. There's a string of slime hanging off his hair. His eyes are wide and dark and shot through in the irises with those in-between colors they go when a troll starts changing - Karkat's are magenta and scarlet and deep swirls of dark violet. Or maybe you're making that up because you want to see something of you in him. "Kar," you say again, because you don't have anything else to say.

He looks back at you with a ferocity and anger you can’t place at first until you realize he’s not looking _at_ you, he’s looking _behind_ you, just over your shoulder at your respiteblock door, and it hits you that your dumbshit moirail is about to try and fight a human spirit demon to protect you. The realization is a mix of emotions – half of you is swelling up with such white-pale pity you think you might start leaking it out your gills, that the terrified bright-burning red-hot boy beside you will cut short his mayfly existence to protect you – the other half is indignantly shouting at you to _do something, you useless crotch sponge,_ Eridan, you are the highblood _royalty,_ you are the _goddamn Orphaner,_ and you are _not_ going to let your moirail down while you cower in your sopor slime like some fucking pupa.

Your respiteblock door creaks open, and you both freeze in spite of your best intentions, because it’s her, lank hair hanging dark and dripping, barefoot and –

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t know Karcrab was here too!”

Your breath rushes out in a heaving spasm. “Fef, _goddamn,_ I just about _murdered_ you there, have you _ever_ heard a _knocking?”_

“It’s the middle of the day!” Feferi flips her wet hair over her shoulder and has the goddamn nerve to look _scornful._ “I expected you to be asleep, so I was trying not to wake you up! You left your TV on, by the wave.”

Karkat goes absolutely limp at your side, and you think he might be blacking out. “Do you care to explain just _what_ you’re doin’ sneakin’ round my hive in the middle of the fucking day?” You try to look as offended and regal as you can, instead of like you were just about to piss your coon in abject terror.

“I was re-tuna-ing your lusus, you ungrakeful wiggler! I lost track of time down in the deep, so I thought I’d crash here for the rest of the day.” She folds her arms.

“An’ you couldn’t just… _call?”_

Karkat stirs and clambers out of the recuperacoon. His claws make faint little _pops_ as he extricates them from your flesh. “I’m going to shove everything I own up Dave Strider’s ass,” he snarls and stomps past Feferi, out of your respiteblock, leaving a trail of slime in his wake.

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the headcanon that in spite of Alternia's massive movie industry spanning millenia, they have never branched into the horror genre because real life is horrible enough (ﾉ ヮ )ﾉ*:・ﾟ


End file.
